Trip to New York -- The Long Version :)

Written by Jason

Well, we have been in two contrasting worlds for the last week and a half. First, we spent six days in New York City in Steve and Kirsten’s studio apartment in the upper west side of Manhattan. Then we spent three days with Neal and Katrina in their home in Olean, NY—a town of 15,000. We are grateful to all four of them for taking such good care of us and helping us have such a great vacation. They live in such different worlds and it was interesting to experience that back-to-back.

We saw lots of famed, historic sites, but probably our very favorite parts were conversations we had with both Steve/Kirsten and Neal/Katrina. We love you guys and look up to you.

Some of my personal favorite places we went/things we did were:

1. Front row seats to Wicked on Broadway- Our flight was several hours delayed in arriving in New York because we couldn’t land there initially due to fog. No sooner than we got to Steve and Kirsten’s were they feeding us waffles and getting us on our way to enter the drawings for very reduced prices for front row tickets to Wicked. Steve, Kirsten, Julie, and I all put our names in. Steve’s name was drawn and he gave us the two tickets. After a trip to Times Square, Julie and I found ourselves only feet away from some intense singing and acting. It was awesome. I could not believe how good the show was. We had seen it before in Chicago and I wasn’t even that into it then, but for some reason this was so much better. I’m not sure if it was just the front row or if I got the story better the second time, or if the acting was better or what. In any case, that play has some really fun music.

2. Top of the Rock- The observation deck in the Rockefeller Center has sweet views of the skyline of Manhattan Island. I love being able to have views like that which give a different perspective. While you’re down on the streets it’s hard to have a concept of how massive and plentiful the skyscrapers are. Top of the Rock gives a different and amazing view.

3. Ellis Island Museum- Wow, what a historically significant place. I would have been happy to spend so much more time there reading about all of the interesting history of the conditions, situations, and issues of Ellis Island from 1892 to 1924 while it was the primary hub for receiving over 12 million immigrants into the US. Unfortunately, Julie was sick this day and completely missed it as well as the Statue of Liberty. I must say, the Statue of Liberty is so famous, but I thought the Ellis Island stop was so much more interesting.

4. Niagara Falls- Wow, God’s creations are amazing. That is a lot of water pouring over the various waterfalls. The Maid of the Mist boat ride and the Cave of the Winds walk were fun adventures with some good cold sprays and splashes from the falls. The Cave of the Winds allows you to walk to the “Hurricane Deck” where you are ten feet away from the bottom of the edge of one of the falls. The splashing is basically like taking a shower with your clothes on.

We also took a couple of bus tours of the city that allowed us to see a lot of things in drive-by fashion: the Empire State Building, the famed Macy’s Department store (it has the most floor space of any department store in the world), apartment buildings that celebrities lived in, Harlem etc. We walked around the area of the World Trade Center and went through a mini 9/11 museum, walked down part of Wall Street, went inside the largest cathedral in the world (St. John’s—it was really impressive), rode bikes through and around Central Park, went to the Museum of Natural History, took a tour of Carnegie Hall, ate at Serendipity, and briefly checked out some fun and unique stores in New York like Dylon’s Candy Shop and the Apple Store on 5^th Avenue.

The Museum of Natural History has this really cool illustration of the relative size of things all the way from the galaxies to parts of an atom. It’s hard to fathom it all, but it reminded me of Abraham 3—if one thing exists, there’s always something greater than it.

We also went to Lion King on Broadway. After how fantastic Wicked was we were a little disappointed overall, but the costuming and sets were creative and amazing. Riding the subways around the city reminded me of my mission.

A nice little break from the noise and commotion of New York City was being able to go to the Manhattan temple one evening. It’s a nice little temple. The interior is more fancy or high class I think than any other temple I have been in. I think it was also the smallest temple I’ve ever been to in terms of the size of the rooms.

With Neal and Katrina we were fortunate enough to go to the Smith family home in Palmyra, the Sacred Grove, the Grandin Printing Shop where The Book of Mormon was first published, and the Hill Cumorah. The church makes things really nice. It’s neat to be able to go to sites so important to our heritage. I didn’t realize the church had a recently released movie about Joseph Smith. We watched the whole thing at the Hill Cumorah Visitor’s Center.

Our trip also included several rounds of Bananagrams, Steve beating us all in a good game of Bang and Neal winning a round of Cities and Knights. Neal is lucky it was my first time playing : ).

Funny Moments:

1. Jason at Wicked: “Wow, that was good. It’s cool to sit so close up.”

Julie: “It’s not over yet. It’s just intermission.”

Jason: “Oh (sheepishly). I forgot how exactly the play goes, but I thought that was a pretty dramatic finale. [Defying Gravity]”

2. Ben’s endless and extremely determined attempts to delay bedtime. That little boy is a crack up. Julie and I had a hard time holding in our laughter when he fell right off his chair one night at dinner. One minute we saw him at the table, and the next he had disappeared under the table, but not before flipping his plate of food off the table right after him.

3. While rushing to the Buffalo Airport from Niagara Falls, as we approached the airport Daniel kept telling us that he just saw our plane take off and that we needed to turn around because it was too late. I don’t know if he really wanted us to stay longer or if he just thought there was only one plane taking off from Buffalo that day. Either way, it didn’t help Julie's stress levels. I love Daniel’s cheerfulness.

4. At the church’s Hill Cumorah Visitor’s Center:

Sister missionary: “What’s your name?”

Daniel: “Daniel Xavier Carter.”

Sister missionary: “How old are you?”

Daniel: “Four and three quarters.”

Unfortunately, I think we were bad luck or something because three of the four nieces and nephews we stayed with had bouts of throwing up while we were with them. Some kind of short-lived bug jumped from Ben to Steve to Kirsten to me to Julie. In fact, I spent one whole morning sleeping on the plush air mattress in Steve and Kirsten’s apartment. Two days later, Julie was down for a whole day of sleeping. We are grateful none of us felt sick longer.

On this trip I’ve gone from learning what the song “Uptown Girl” is even talking about to learning that when Joseph Smith had the First Vision in the Sacred Grove, there probably were not any leaves on the trees yet (a little different from the movie portrayals huh?), from listening to little Ben insist on offering his several-minute long input to the Family Home Evening lesson to Bishop Carter teaching the fifth Sunday lesson to his little ward, from sleeping on an air mattress (and a nice one at that) in a studio apartment on Broadway, to sleeping in the loft of an old New England home on Main Street in Olean, NY. Now that’s what I call a vacation!

(If you want to see pictures, you can look at the slideshow at the bottom of the blog.)

My, How Quickly Life Changes

Well, a lot has changed since Easter. In fact, Easter seems like a long time ago now. But before I just jump over Mother's Day, however, I do want to acknowledge my wonderful mother and mother-in-law. They both both treat me as their daughters and I'm grateful for their loving care and support. I hope to one day be a mother as wise and loving and caring as they are.

My father and father-in-law also both had significant birthdays in the last couples weeks as well. I love both of them too and I hope they both had wonderful birthdays.

One of the biggest changes for us in the last couple of weeks has been the fact that Jason quit his job and decided to go back to school. Although the actual day he quit surprised me, the fact that he quite did not surprise me at all. Jason is not a salesman and we both knew that he wouldn't be happy selling for very long. He hadn't been very happy for a while now with all the pressure, etc. so I'm glad it all came to a head a couple weeks ago and he was able to stop working at Qualtrics with just enough time to apply, get accepted, and register for classes at UVU for the summer term.

Jason's new career plan involves becoming an actuary, or someone who uses complex mathematical formulas to calculate risk for companies, such as life insurance, pension plans, business consulting, etc. Jason is actually really good at math, so we both wonder why he didn't take any math at BYU. Well, he actually took one stats class which he really enjoyed, but that's it. Since he doesn't have a college math background, he has some work ahead of him. He took a math placement test on Monday and tested into Calculus, so as soon as he can get in (probably in the Fall) he'll start taking some advanced math classes. In the meantime he's trying to get other educational experience needed to be an actuary, such as accounting, economics, finance, etc. To actually become an actuary you have to pass a series of tests. It will take somewhere between 1-2 years before he'll be prepared to take the first test, and as soon as he passes at least one test, he'll be pretty marketable to get a job. We're both excited to have this new plan and more direction for the future. Interestingly enough, a lot of the jobs for actuaries are on the east coast, so we may find ourselves living out there in a few years.

What we're both excited for though, is a vacation! We're looking forward to our upcoming trip to New York to visit Jason's brother and his family as well as my sister and her family. We're glad we timed it just right though, because my sister's husband Neal just got accepted to teach at BYU-I and so they're moving to Idaho in a few months. We're really excited for their good news and are very happy to have them closer to the rest of the family.

Happy Easter!

I really love Easter time. Being a "grown-up" and not having children makes it a different type of holiday than the way that most people celebrate it, but I still love it. I think the best way Jason and I celebrated Easter this year was by going to the Carl Bloch art exhibit at BYU. Tickets have long been sold out. We tried to go stand-by with Jason's parents, but the line was nearly out the door. Fortunately, some kind people noticed our plight and offered to give us some of their extra tickets so we could get in. It was a really nice exhibit focused on the life of Christ. I checked out an ipad to get the full exhibit tour and enjoyed learning much more about each of the six large altar pieces that hung in the galleries. I liked each piece more the more I learned about it. Carl Bloch was a very talented and insightful man. I'm so glad we got to see the exhibit before it closed and I'm grateful for a chance to study the life of Christ from another perspective.

For Easter I bought a new pair of Sunday shoes. I feel like I don't buy new shoes very often, so this was a treat. It's fun to have something new to wear!

My interesting experience of the week involves driving. On Wed., as I exited the carpool lane freeway exit and came up over the hill, I discovered too late that all the cars on the other side were stopped. I slammed on my brakes, but not soon enough to prevent me from hitting the car in front of me. I've never hit another car before, so I think I was startled and I a little numb. The car in front of me pulled off to the side of the road and I pulled behind him. A man in his late 20's got out of the car, briefly looked at the back of his car, glanced at the front of my car, and then waved me off saying, "You're good." I said, "Are you sure?" "Yeah," he said as he got back in his car and drove off. I was pretty stunned. I pulled back into traffic and drove the remaining seven blocks to work. As soon as I parked I looked at the front of my car: only my license plate was a little bent around the edges. Other than that, I couldn't see any other evidence of hitting another car. I was a little rattled at work for the next hour or so, but I couldn't help feeling so blessed! It could have been so much worse.

Visiting Grandpa B

Grandma June has been in the hospital this last week with pneumonia so we went to keep Grandpa B. company on Sunday with Jason's parents. We had a great time singing around the player piano--well I mostly watched because I didn't know the songs from the 30's, 40's, and 50's.

I'd never seen a player piano up close before, but they are pretty cool! The last song we played was "Some Enchanted Evening" and that song has been played so many times, it was plain worn out. I think we heard it's last performance.

During our visit, Grandpa B's neighbor brought him a hot dinner of pot roast and mashed potatoes. Grandpa B had just eaten not too long before so he offered it to us. We sampled the food and it was delicious! Neighbors are so great!

Road Shows!

Our road show turned out awesome! Thank you to those of you who came, and to those of you who couldn't, I'm sorry you missed out. :)

We performed three times last weekend at the Stake Center and our ward building. After three short weeks of practicing and two rocky dress rehearsals, our youth and stage crew pulled out an amazing performance of "Potter War," our 17 min. play on a spoof of Hogwarts School of Wizardry starring Napolean Dragomite as a new student.

We started with a puppet show, complete with puppet theater, and showcased four 30-sec. dances including: Popular, from Wicked; Teach Me How to Jimmer, from youtube; Get Your Head in the Game, from High School Musical; and Dynamite, from the radio. :)

I choreographed the basketball dance staring Ron Weasley and his group. They never got it quite right with the basketballs until they performed it, and then they did an awesome job.

Our scenery, costumes, and props were all fabulous, and we won a very deserving award for the best acting. I've listened to the script so many times I practically have it all memorized, and there were so many great one-liners that I'm sure the youth with be quoting it for some time to come. Although I was called as a co-director, the credit really goes to many, many ward members who helped with building and painting scenery, creating props, and coaching the leads in their acting. Hopefully I learned a few tricks along the way in case I ever get asked to do one of these again--although I'd be even more happy to support them from the audience!

Jason's Survey Project for Work

For my job at Qualtrics, I created a survey using the tool our company sells. I need to present an analysis of the results, however, I need more responses in order to do this. So, if you're not in our family (I already e-mailed them the link), please take this survey about jobs and priorities. It is taking most respondents 10-15 minutes.

Click here to take a survey.

Thank you for your help.

-Jason

An Interesting Sunday

I think I'm coming down with Spring Fever. I have all the symptoms: wishing for sunny, warm weather, wanting to be outside more, getting tired of the daily work routine, and a seeming need to get away for a vacation. Maybe I just need a good General Conference to lighten my load since I won't get any vacation until the end of May. I really do look forward to Conference weekend, and this weekend is no exception.

My last couple of weeks have been filled with Road show. I really enjoy the co-director I work with and most of the youth are really great. We had our first two practices this week--two hours on Tuesday and 3 hours on Saturday, with smaller group practices inbetween. It's coming together but we still have quite a ways to go.

Today was kind of an unusual Sunday. First, I was asked to teach Singing Time in Primary. I haven't been in a real Primary since I was in Primary as a child. The normal chorister had lots of great props and suggestions which made preparing very easy. The children and the pianist were great helpers and singers. Unfortunately, my pictures and words got mixed up for a new (and unfamiliar to me) song that I was teaching them. I got a little flustered, but things worked out okay in the end.

Second, when I got Sunday School I realized that I had forgotten my scriptures at home. I seriously can't remember the last time I forgot to bring my scriptures to church, but it's been well over ten years for sure. I had a hard time concentrating since I was reliving my Singing Time experience in my head, and not having scriptures to follow along didn't help.

Finally, when I got to Sacrament Meeting, the scheduled pianist wasn't there and the Sacrament Meeting chorister kindly passed the word on to the frazzled bishopric member that I played the piano. He came right up to me and asked if I would play, which I did. I asked to change the Sacrament hymn to No. 169, but I left the others as they were (No. 19, 21). I did fine on the first two, but had to sight read a little more on the third one that I wasn't as familiar with. Overall it went fine, just an unexpected ending to an interesting day. Our landlord commented to Jason afterward, "I didn't know your wife had this hidden talent. Where does she practice?" He answered, "That's the amazing thing, she doesn't." Now I definitely think I get a lot of help when I play in church, and I hope that the "not practicing" part isn't permanent. I really miss playing the piano and wish I could have one. It's such a relaxing and satisfying thing to do.